The UMUC Library continues to provide research assistance and resources 24/7 via e-mail and live chat. In-person and telephone assistance are available at our Largo location during regularly scheduled business hours. Use our instant messaging service for quick library-related questions during selected hours from the Ask a Librarian page and through our subject guides. You may also text us for assistance (standard charges to your phone may apply). Be sure also to explore the library's new mobile site! Weekend walk-in and telephone research assistance are also available at our office in the McKeldin Library on the University of Maryland College Park campus.

The UMUC Library remains dedicated to providing our users with the most comprehensive resources available combined with the finest research assistance possible. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Factiva
Now includes access to over 19 million additional public and private companies, plus enhanced company profiles including the top five executives per company and key developments. Additionally, new industry snapshots include in-depth overviews with links to companies in each industry, news articles and trade associations. Search Factiva for articles and other news items on a wide variety of topics.

Project Muse
Recent enhancements have improved our Project Muse journal collection! More back issues, RSS feeds, and improved PDF views are now available. Project Muse is a great resource for humanities and social sciences topics.

NetLibrary
Will be moving to the EBSCOhost interface, as of July 1, 2011, and will be renamed “ebooks on EBSCOhost”. The library will post more details in this newsletter as soon as a preview of the new interface is released…stay tuned!

Safari Books Online
Due to popular demand, the library increased the number of users that can access Safari at any given time. This resource provides 9,800 e-books on business, management, and technology topics.

The webinar will first review the electronic resources evaluation process, focusing on the myriad of details required to prepare and maintain a useful array of electronic resources. The course will conclude with a discussion of Springshare's LibGuides--portals that effectively organize the evaluation process for electronic resources.

Librarians Barb Mann (Assistant Director for Public Services), Robert Miller (Reference and Instruction Librarian and Library Liaison for the Sciences), and Joe Rawson (24/7 Services Coordinator) will present an Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) e-learning course entitled The Not-So-Distant Librarian: Online Library Instruction to Engage Students and Faculty on February 22. This small group, along with Megan Davis (Reference and Instruction Librarian and Regional Services Liaison), originally presented this workshop in September. It was so well-received that this group was asked to present it again in February.

Using ACRL’s web conferencing platform, Elluminate, to provide an interactive workshop, the presenters will share practical tips and tools for designing, implementing, and assessing online library instruction. Fostering peer, faculty, and administration buy-in will also be discussed. After the live event, participants will have an opportunity to draft online instruction materials and receive feedback from the presenters and other participants via a real-time chat sessions as a follow up to the webcast.

UMUC Library Staff Publications

Jennifer Diffin, Assistant Director, Systems and Access Services and Dennis Nangle, Library Technician III have co-authored a book chapter that will appear in LITA Guide to Cloud Computing in 2011. The chapter, entitled "SharePoint Strategies for Establishing a Powerful Library Intranet," describes approaches in using Microsoft SharePoint, a collaborative software tool. Much of the existing documentation on SharePoint is within the context of corporate and business culture; this chapter outlines the various features of SharePoint and how they can be best developed within library environments.

Stephen Miller, Associate Provost for Information and Library Services, published a chapter entitled "Knowledge Management, E-Learning, and the Role of the Academic Library" in the new book Knowledge Management and E-Learning. This book, edited by Jay Liebowitz, Orkand Chair of Management and Technology in UMUC’s Graduate School of Management and Technology, and Michael Frank, Senior Vice President of Academic Programs and Dean Graduate School of Management and Technology, was published by CRC Press in fall 2010. It discusses the interlinkages of the two fields of knowledge management and e-learning and features contributions from a number of UMUC faculty members. Mr. Miller's chapter discusses the unique roles that academic librarians in e-learning environments can play in knowledge management initiatives, and is intended for e-learning administrators and practitioners in higher education.

New UMUC Digital Repository

Building upon the UMUC Research & Scholarship Web page, the UMUC Library has now implemented an institutional repository: UMUC Digital Repository. The UMUC Digital Repository allows the library to capture, preserve, and provide perpetual access to the scholarly works of UMUC faculty, students, and staff as well as selected material from the UMUC archives. Institutional Repositories are an important component of the Open Access publishing movement, and academic libraries worldwide have been adopted them over the past 10 years. Everything included on the UMUC Research & Scholarship Web page is now fully searchable within UMUC Digital Repository. To access the repository, just visit the UMUC Research & Scholarship Web site.

As an additional feature of the UMUC Digital Repository, UMUC faculty and staff may now submit works of research and scholarship such as articles, white papers, research reports, presentation slides, etc., to be included. By submitting your work, you can...

Share materials with your colleagues and students

Allow others to find out what you are working on (and likewise see what others are working on and interested in)

Make materials available via a UMUC service, under the UMUC name, while still retaining your rights under copyright law and your ability to use the materials in other ways as you wish

Ensure that your work will be preserved for the long term

Be recognized as part of the UMUC community of scholars and researchers

Before submitting materials, please read the Deposit Guidelines and Author FAQ to determine if your materials meet the requirements for inclusion (for instance, course-related materials created for UMUC classes are not appropriate for the Repository). Then complete and return the Digital Repository License along with your item(s) to digitalrepository@umuc.edu. We expect to have this area of the repository available in mid-spring.

Please note that you must be able to assign rights to UMUC or have permission from the copyright holder to do so (such as a release to post the material in an institutional repository from a publisher), and be able to agree to and sign the Digital Repository License.

For Your Information...

Megan Baker has joined the UMUC Library Electronic Reserves Team as a Library Technician III. She holds a BA in Psychology with a minor in English from the University of Houston- Downtown, and is currently working towards her MLS through Texas Woman's University.

Rocco DeBonis is the newest member of the UMUC Library Reference Team as a Reference & Instruction Librarian. He is currently completing his Master of Library and Information Science degree at UMCP and also holds a MFA from the University of Virginia, as well as a M.S. in Secondary Education from Mercy College and a B.A. in Political Science from Cornell University. Rocco will serve as the SUS library liaison to the Center for Student Success and will take over duties from Ryan Shepard, allowing him to focus on his new role as liaison to the Cybersecurity programs.

McKeldin Library Office Hours
Research continues to be available to UMUC students, faculty, and staff in the ILS office in McKeldin Library, Room 6259. Normal hours are:

Appointments
An in-person appointment may be made to meet with an ILS librarian in the ILS library at the Student Faculty Services Center, at McKeldin library, or at the Dorsey Station library. For those students and faculty members who do not live within the area, individual consultations with librarians are also available via telephone and through Web conferencing. To arrange an appointment, please complete the Request an Appointment form.

Faculty Corner

New Library Liaison for Cybersecurity

Reference & Instruction Librarian Ryan Shepard has been appointed as the new Library Liaison for Cybersecurity. Ryan has been the liaison to the SUS Department of Computer Information Systems and Technology (CITE) for the past several years. In his expanded role, he will closely follow the literature and publication trends and work to advise and assist faculty, Program Directors, and Course coordinators at both the SUS and GSMT level to ensure that the latest Cybersecurity resources are available for these critical courses. He will be assisting in new course development, developing specialized course guides and information literacy instruction resources for Cybersecurity courses, maintaining the Library's Cybersecurity and Information Assurance subject guides, and assisting students with their Cybersecurity-related research needs and handling special research requests for the Cybersecurity programs.

Library Liaisons

The UMUC Library provides library liaison services to UMUC faculty. We welcome the opportunity to work closely with faculty to provide tailored library services to individual classes, whether it be visiting your online or face-to-face class, assisting in adding information literacy components to specific course assignments or projects, or providing handouts or online resources customized to your discipline or current course topic. Keep the liaison librarians in mind when you have library related questions, need extra help with research, or need instruction on how to use our resources.

Instruction

As the Spring 2011 semester begins, UMUC librarians look forward to working with you and your classes, either via Web Tycho or on-site, in the provision of library resources instruction. The transferable skill building and concept understanding that librarians offer in these sessions provide both a deeper comprehension and comfort level for your students in locating, evaluating, and using information relevant to their studies. This preparation and reinforcement will hold your students in good stead as they deal with the vast amount of available information during their academic careers and as productive employees and citizens. Please complete the Faculty Request for Library Instruction form to schedule one or more sessions for your classes.

Hot Sites... Specialized Intergovernmental Organizations

Specialized Intergovernmental Organizations, or IGO’s, are groupings of nations that are usually established by a treaty. Their membership is organized around a product or other specialized resource, language, ethnic group, or military alliances. Their Web sites can contain a wealth of statistical information and other types of information that can be useful in your research on a wide variety of topics from trade to law. Examples of some useful specialized IGO’s that fall into the above categories include:

Commonwealth of Nationshttp://www.thecommonwealth.org/
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 54 countries that support each other and work together towards shared goals in democracy and development. Member countries span six continents and oceans from Africa (19) to Asia (8), the Americas (2), the Caribbean (12), Europe (3) and the South Pacific (10). The Commonwealth, with roots as far back as the 1870s, believes that the best democracies are achieved through partnerships – of governments, business, and civil society. This unique association was reconstituted in 1949 when Commonwealth Prime Ministers met and adopted what has become known as the ‘London Declaration’ where it was agreed all member countries would be “freely and equally associated.”

G20http://www.g20.org
The Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (G-20, G20, Group of Twenty) is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 countries plus the European Union. It studies, reviews, and promotes discussion (among key industrial and emerging market countries) of policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability, and seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organization

Islamic Development Bankhttp://www.isdb.org
The Islamic Development Bank is an international financial institution established in 1973. The Bank's mission is to foster the economic development and social progress of member countries and Muslim communities individually as well as jointly in accordance with the principles of Shari'ah, i.e., Islamic Law.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/index.htm
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance of 28 countries from North America and Europe committed to fulfilling the goals of the North Atlantic Treaty signed on 4 April 1949. In accordance with the Treaty, the fundamental role of NATO is to safeguard the freedom and security of its member countries by political and military means. NATO is playing an increasingly important role in crisis management and peacekeeping.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countrieshttp://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC is a permanent, intergovernmental organization, created at the Baghdad Conference on September 10–14, 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The five Founding Members were later joined by nine other members. OPEC's objective is to co-ordinate and unify petroleum policies among Member Countries in order to secure fair and stable prices for petroleum producers; an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consuming nations; and a fair return on capital to those investing in the industry.